The visitor's results look more like "most played of the year": with most people only choosing between "Fallout 3 and Mass Effect" because chances are that's the only ones they played in the list. And I am no exception, I voted for Storm of Zehir and the only other 2008 releases I played were Fallout 3 and Mass Effect. I'll try my best to get around to playing the other games in the list, I promise ;-)

I'd like to see the results of your poll divided by sales figures. That would be quite informative: Fable 2's rating would be even more abysmal. And King's Bounty and Avernum 5 would probably rank 1st and 2nd.

What really surprised me though is the editor's choice. I too, as many other commentors here, wouldn't have placed my bets on Fallout 3. Come on, do you really want to break NMA's and the Codec's hearts

I haven't played Fallout 3 all the way through yet but where (besides in the city) is there areas blocked off. I haven't seen any areas that I can't get to in anyway I can but I know there will be in the city and I knew there would be before reading about it. It is natural that areas in a large destroyed city would be blocked by rubble and it hadn't I wouldn't believe the city was destroyed by a nuclear explosion but modified manually by someone to look like that.

In conclusion sometimes you have to block areas off for believability purposes.

PS. I haven't been more then a few feet into the city so I don't know how it is done so take this with a grain of salt.

Originally Posted by Hedek
What really surprised me though is the editor's choice. I too, as many other commentors here, wouldn't have placed my bets on Fallout 3. Come on, do you really want to break NMA's and the Codec's hearts

Why, what would the Codex choose from that list? I don't really go there any more so I don't know the current thinking but I personally can't see a better choice on that list.

Originally Posted by Geist
I suspect Fable 2 might have received a lot more votes had it been released for PC? For those who have played it, how does it stack up to the top 3?

Yeah, most of us haven't played it. I'm a PC-only player (not making an anti-console statement there - they just don't fit into my life at the moment), so it *might* be great but I haven't even seen it in action, let alone played it.

Every other game that received greater than 1% vote I've spent a fair bit of time with.

Others may vote for it but I wouldn't it's just too simple not to mention its mixed connotations on the genre as a whole. I recently watched my girlfriend complete the thing and have no intentions of playing it myself (Fable 2).

I have played Fable 2 somewhat and so far it is better then the first one but I stopped playing when I got annoyed by the ridiculous npc interaction system just like the first one. I don't like the game very much myself but if you can get by the npc interaction then you might like the game.

I like my rpgs to center around story, (many) other people apparently like their rpgs to center around exploration. And apparently there are more of them than there are of the likes of me. I still don't quite understand why the Editor's Choice were given to Fallout 3. An Editor's Choice award, imo, should not be given to games that just let the player go through the same old routines, but should be given to a game that tries something new and creative. And that why I would give the Editor's Choice award to —- Mass Effect.

Originally Posted by Xizor
Ok so I'll try logically and consistent when being illogical has failed. (Up yours Sherlock Holmes ) So the explanation for my raving is:

Premise 1: I think that side quests in F3 are for the most part an uneventful experience (still better than the main quest). With bleak'n'weak characters. The quests try to be much more but IMHO fail. Some locations are nicely done, but empty.

Premise 2: The ME side quests do not try to be anything but cannon fodder for loot and XP. That is just miserable, however you quickly accept them as being such and either quit or move on for the sake of loot. The main story is told in a very good way, even though not the most original one in the bunch.

Premise 1a: The exploration in F3 is hindered by "canyoning" the world with debris and ruins. I strongly object to that. If it is an exploration I want to go wherever I want and by any means I want. Drudging along the metro is just not cutting it.

Premise 2a: The Normandy can take you anywhere, practically anywhen. Is a cool ship to boot. Although you do not really explore anything. You pick a system from the starchart, read some nice descriptions of the planets and land on !khazam! another copy-paste planet with bad guys.

Conclusion 1: Exploration in F3 is bad.

Conclusion 2: Exploration in ME is bad.

The degrees of suckiness may vary from person to person, however I still maintain that you cannot pick F3 superior "exploration" as a point over ME

For reasons stated before (being tied to F1&2, and liking a good story over other elements), I am more inclined towards ME than F3.

Thank you for a good conversation, flame on

Disclaimer: the premise-conclusion thing may not follow from a standpoint of formal logic

Though I strongly disagree with you about Fallout 3 exploration, it's very nice to see a detailed clarification of your opinion and what it's based on.

I don't understand how anyone could describe the side-quest areas as empty, and as I said I think it's one of the best games in recent times in terms of making areas both unique and interesting. About the "canyoning" I think that's pretty unfair when you consider how open the world is, and you'll be VERY hard pressed to find any game that doesn't have this in one way or another. It's true that the DC area was made with some shortcuts, but if you really expected an area that big to be fully detailed with unique locations that were fully explorable, you were being totally unrealistic. No game in existence has content on that scale. It's a design choice to give you the illusion of scale whilst retaining the unique feeling of the individual locations. Sure, it could be done like they did in, say, GTA and just have a barren town with textures instead of actual doors.

Anyway, you can't argue with opinions, and it's good to know where you're coming from with yours.

Originally Posted by aries100
I like my rpgs to center around story, (many) other people apparently like their rpgs to center around exploration. And apparently there are more of them than there are of the likes of me. I still don't quite understand why the Editor's Choice were given to Fallout 3. An Editor's Choice award, imo, should not be given to games that just let the player go through the same old routines, but should be given to a game that tries something new and creative. And that why I would give the Editor's Choice award to —- Mass Effect.

I think you've misunderstood "Editor's Choice" and "Editors' Choice". This isn't a gold star award for the best RPG - it's simply the vote of the staff. More staff liked Fallout 3 more than Avernum 5 - the number 2. As a group, I'm sorry, Mass Effect was further down the list.

If it were an award, I doubt Mass Effect would win (but we didn't vote on that premise, so that's just my assumption based on where ME ended up). In fact, I'd apply your description in reverse - Mass Effect just went through the same routines. It's an updated, streamlined KotOR. I don't see anything particularly new or creative, unless you're counting the dialogue wheel and I'd put Fallout 3's VATs up against that - both achieve their main gameplay intent but have other problems.

By the way, I really enjoy story-based games - I just didn't find Mass Effect's that special. It certainly wasn't bad - I quite enjoyed it - but I enjoyed Fallout 3 more.

Waa ther not a "other" vote? or was it on another game site I also woted on (ign). Its true that TW was a 2007 game, but the EE version was a kind of expansion, there was two new adventuers included and cost twice as much as a normal XP pack (if you ara a collecter as me). Rember that Mass Effect also came out ind 2007 to Xbox, and since that the list also include Xbox games (fabel 2), some can ague if it should be on the list, and not last years list.